DC Restaurant News: New Menus, New Venues, & Events for You

Welcome to Week two of BYT’s new weekly restaurant news column! We’ve got all kinds of insider information on restaurant openings, pop-ups, and seasonal food and drink specials and events around the DMV. Fall dining, here we come.

New Venues

District Doughnut Wharf

DC’s favorite doughnut shop, District Doughnut, opened a new venue at the Wharf this past weekend. Funfetti, Nutella s’mores, and brown butter doughnuts are waiting for you. Don’t choose, just get them all.

Guapo’s Georgetown Waterfront

Mexican food has arrived in Georgetown. Margaritas, guacamole, fajitas and all your other tex-mex favorites are on the menu at Guapo’s as of August 29th. The restaurant will be serving brunch, lunch, and dinner as well as happy hour that includes drinks and food specials like $5 yucca fries.

Lupo Osteria, Napoli Pasta Bar and San Lorenzo

Three new Italian restaurants just opened in DC this year. Read about our dining experience at all three of them here, where we compare and contrast and discuss highs and lows.

Burrata at Lupo Verde

Amparo Fondita

Mexican restaurant Amparo Fondita opened the doors to its pop-up in Brookland’s District Space this month and the food is dynamite. Here’s our review. Be sure to visit them soon, as the pop-up will end on September 30th!

New Menus

Bindaas Chai Menu

Bindaas Foggy Bottom has introduced a new afternoon chai menu, an Indian version of high tea. From 3-5pm Sundays through Fridays you can order from a special chai menu. Options include several different kinds of teas and a host of awesome snacks like a cucumber and chutney sandwich, spicy French fries, and saffron scones served with strawberry rose jam. Per usual, Executive Chef Vikram Sunderam outdoes himself.

Finger sandwiches at Bindaas

Heidelberg Pastry Shoppe

This German bakery in Arlington, Virginia has a new fall menu with sweets like apple caramel nut pie, apple danishes, apple strudel, pumpkin pies and pumpkin spice muffins. Yes, pumpkin season is here my friends.

The Smith U Street

The Smith’s U Street location is now open for lunch 7 days a week, and is featuring a special menu that has a brunch section with dishes like avocado toast and buttermilk waffles. Even brunch cocktails like Bloody Marys and French 75s will be available. For those who prefer a more traditional lunch, sandwiches and salads are available.

Hank’s Cocktail Bar

Starting September 1, Hank’s Cocktail Bar will be introducing a new, limited menu featuring lower ABV cocktails for $11 every Saturday which will run until the following Friday. This menu is for the nights when you still want to go out, but actually have to work the next day.

Events for You

Free Coffee at Peregrine Espresso

To celebrate their 10 year anniversary, Peregrine Espresso will be giving away free drip and iced coffee all day on September 5th! The beans for the hot and cold coffee are roasted in the D.C. by Peregrine’s sister company, Small Planes Coffee. There’s nothing that will cure your long weekend hangover like a cup of (free) coffee.

Night Market at Tiger Fork

On Thursday, September 6th from 10:30pm – 12:30am Tiger Fork will transform into a Hong Kong street market with food and drink stands throughout the restaurant. Tiger Fork will welcome guest chefs along with Kavalan Whisky and Nikka Distilling to serve whisky flights and unique highball cocktails. No tickets or reservations are needed for for the event. Tiger Fork Night Market hopes to make this a monthly event.

10th Annual VegFest

DC’s famous annual Vegfest is taking place in Yards Park this September 15th. Expect over 120 vendors and exhibitors, almost a dozen speakers, and vegan food from all over the country. It’s one of my favorite events of the year.

Trivia Night

Turns out, DC bars are full of trivia nights. We created a handy trivia night guide so you can satisfy your competitive streak, while getting trashed.

Rosh Hashana at Equinox Restaurant

Equinox Restaurant is offering a $55 four course menu with plant based options this Rosh Hashana, on September 10th and 11th. I may not be Jewish but this menu looks so delectable I have to make a reservation! Challah crostini, roasted spaghetti squash with truffled mushroom cream, and agave apple cake are just some of the highlights.

D.C. Introduces Black Restaurant Week

In addition to discounted three course lunch and dinner menus, this restaurant week will have an awards ceremony, a bartender competition, and a mixology class, all highlighting black chefs, bartenders and restaurant owners. Restaurants that support the black community are also invited to participate. This is a great way to support individuals in the restaurant community who are often under appreciated.

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Beyond the fog of burning blunts, the sea of whiskey, and forest of empties, you’ll find two sweethearts in a Nashville garage. Just as they were yesterday, the day before

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Beyond the fog of burning blunts, the sea of whiskey, and forest of empties, you’ll find two sweethearts in a Nashville garage. Just as they were yesterday, the day before that, and years prior. Searching for the perfect combination of string plucking, button pushing, and knob turning to craft the ideal sound to make you forget your world and step into theirs. The aforementioned sweethearts are Jordan Kelley and Jason Huber; known to most as “Cherub.”

It all began in 2010 at Middle Tennessee State University. The two met as Jason was playing around town with local bands and Jordan was crafting what would become known as their first album, Man of the Hour. A few years later, it was the song “Doses & Mimosas” that caught the attention of the public and gained the interest of Columbia Records, who signed the duo in 2013. Their 4 year major label run brought their fans two LP’s, Year of the Caprese and Bleed Gold Piss Excellence, while also sending them around the world playing festivals such as Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Glastonbury, Outside Lands, Osheaga, Summer Camp, Summer Sonic, and headlining 4 US tours. Now, a gold record and 130 million Spotify streams later, the bond between them remains “unfuckwithable,” as they construct their newest batch of genre-defying anthems.

From the streets of Bangkok, to the dive bars of Nashville, Cherub has been drawing inspiration from everything around them. “Each one of these songs was written and recorded at different times, in different places across the world,” says Jason. “It seems to make sense, releasing each new song individually, giving us a chance to take you to where we were in our heads when it was created and pair each track with a something visual to tie it together.”

Straying from the common record label strategy of releasing a single or two followed by an album, Cherub has decided to give each new song it’s own time in the sun. “We don’t want anything to get lost,” says Jordan. The new collection of work spans multiple genres while still keeping with the same style of addictively playful melodies Cherub fans have grown to love. It’s a “song first, production later” approach at creating music that may bring some ears back to an earlier time in the duo’s existence. “There’s a certain simplicity in these new songs that remind me of the first few Cherub records,” says Jason.

There’s no doubt that the latest Cherub efforts will win over their existing audience and draw new listeners to their established brand of debauchery. From your ears to your heart, like searching for room on their bodies for a new tattoo, they’ll find a way.

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The key to delicious Italian cooking isn’t a generations-old family secret: It’s simply starting with the highest-quality ingredients you can find. After an informative afternoon with a pair of experts

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The key to delicious Italian cooking isn’t a generations-old family secret: It’s simply starting with the highest-quality ingredients you can find. After an informative afternoon with a pair of experts in Italian specialty foods, you’ll be ready to step away from generic offerings on supermarket shelves to fill your basket with cheese, pasta, vinegar, and preserves that reflect the rich heritage of centuries of artisans.

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Grab your friends and join us for a night of high speed fun skidding across the floodlit slopes at the awesome Avalanche Express.
We’ll be kicking things off at Kelly’s Irish

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Grab your friends and join us for a night of high speed fun skidding across the floodlit slopes at the awesome Avalanche Express.

We’ll be kicking things off at Kelly’s Irish Times from 4:30pm for some pre-game, before hopping aboard the BYOB #Fraylife Bus where you’ll be entertained all the way to the slopes by the DC Fray Events Squad with games, treats, and more.

You’ll have 2 hours of so-fun-it-shouldn’t-be-allowed GLOW tubing action whilst warming up in between runs around the fire.

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Years before they climbed the country charts with songs like “Stay a Little Longer” and “Rum,” the Brothers Osborne grew up in Deale, Maryland, a small fishing town on the

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Years before they climbed the country charts with songs like “Stay a Little Longer” and “Rum,” the Brothers Osborne grew up in Deale, Maryland, a small fishing town on the Atlantic seaboard. It was a cozy place, filled with blue-collar workers who made their living on the water. During the weekends, many of those workers would head over to the Osborne household, where a series of loose, all-night jam sessions filled the Maryland air with the sounds of Bob Seger, Hank Williams, Tom Petty and George Jones. The Osborne siblings strummed their first chords during those jam sessions. From the very start, TJ Osborne was the brother with the voice. He sang in a thick, low baritone, crooning like Johnny Cash long before he was even old enough to drive. Older brother John, on the other hand, was the family’s guitar shredder, his fingers capable of down-home bluegrass licks, arena-worthy rock riffs, country twang, and everything in between. Combined, the two Osbornes could play everything from traditional country music to rock & roll, creating a broad, full-bodied sound that would eventually fill the 11 songs on their major-label debut, Pawn Shop.

Like its title suggests, Pawn Shop offers a little bit of everything. There’s bluesy slide guitar, country duets, southern rock solos, harmonies, and plenty of groove. The hooks are big, the guitars are loud, and the songs — every last one of them co-written by the Osbornes, who reached out to award-winning songwriters like Shane McAnally and Ross Copperman for help — introduce a duo whose music bridges the gap between the mainstream and the alternative world. Some songs were written at home in Nashville, while others came together on the road, where the guys spent several years headlining their own club shows, touring the country with Darius Rucker, and playing some of the biggest arenas in America with fellow rule-breaker Eric Church.

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First night sold out! Second night added! Recording artist Vince Staples has come a long way from his trying upbringing in Long Beach, California’s Ramona Park neighborhood. Releasing his critically acclaimed

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First night sold out! Second night added!

Recording artist Vince Staples has come a long way from his trying upbringing in Long Beach, California’s Ramona Park neighborhood. Releasing his critically acclaimed debut Summertime ’06 album in 2015, the then twenty-year-old saw his life turned right side up, going from being nearly trapped to having what appeared to be complete freedom.

Yet, as his most recent projects suggest, appearances can be deceiving. The LPs delves into the confusion of sudden fame and acclimating to a lifestyle antithetical to the one he’d known in Long Beach – one wrought with gang violence and poverty. It’s a fundamental narrative in hip hop, but rappers have always found a new way to breathe life into it. Staples brings forth a vision that’s brutal, elegant, playful, and despondent in one breath.

Such is the nature of his music, as self and socially aware as it is comical. With FM!, Big Fish Theory, Prima Donna and Summertime ’06 behind him, Staples has set the tone for what’s yet to come. A standout rapper in today’s hip hop world, he keeps his sound deeply tied to his west coast roots and his message one that knows no boundaries.

In a world of full of painful departures, his art gives listeners reason to believe that, somehow, as he advances, the people who have left him and the people who he’s left behind will still be waiting for him at the end.

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“I want real things— live people to take hold of —to see—and talk to—music that makes holes in the sky—I want to love as hard as I can.” – Georgia

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“I want real things— live people to take hold of —to see—and talk to—music that makes holes in the sky—I want to love as hard as I can.” – Georgia O’Keefe

Inspired by Georgia O’Keefe’s words, the trailblazing, NPR chart-topping Lara Downes has channeled her prodigious creativity and “luscious, moody, and dreamy” (New York Times) sound into an intimate program of solo and ensemble works that pays tribute to women past and present who are composers and poets. Her special guest is multi-instrumentalist/composer/singer and MacArthur “Genius Award” winner Rhiannon Giddens, who, through her own work and her performances as a member of the Grammy-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops, embodies precisely the ethos Downes had in mind.

This performance is made possible through the generous support of the Susan B. Hepner Family and Great Jones Capital. Washington Performing Arts performances at Sixth & I are made possible through the generous support of the Galena-Yorktown Foundation.

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Put away your point-and-shoot camera and pull out your iPhone to create great images. This half-day workshop prepares you to make the most of your phone’s camera, starting with photography

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Put away your point-and-shoot camera and pull out your iPhone to create great images. This half-day workshop prepares you to make the most of your phone’s camera, starting with photography basics such as essential compositional skills and exposure, then moving on to an exploration of some of the best apps, camera accessories, and low-cost tools for editing and image management. During the lunch break (students provide their own), you’ll capture some sights on the National Mall to share with the class in a critique session.